


Plots And Devices

by ch63



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-25
Updated: 2006-02-25
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:23:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8065291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ch63/pseuds/ch63
Summary: The crew are captured by unpleasant aliens. (10/11/2005)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).
> 
> Author's notes: I started this fic before I'd seen any of Season 4, much less the finale, but I'd been following the comments and spoilers here* (because I have *no* willpower :-)) and this bunny latched on and wouldn't let go. And having now seen 4.01 "Storm Front" I know I've been Jossed, but what the heck. Call it AU if you like.  
>   
> Beta by RoaringMice, who helped enormously, particularly with one major change that I think improved things vastly. Thank you. Any remaining mistooks are entirely mine.  
> * "here" being the EntSlash mailing list, where this was originally posted.

Trip Tucker groaned and rubbed his aching head. He felt as though he'd been clubbed with a phase rifle.

"What happened?" he mumbled to no one in particular.

"You were clubbed with a phase rifle, Commander," Malcolm, sounding concerned. "How do you feel?"

Somehow, being right didn't make Trip feel any better. "Lousy. Who hit me?"

"It happened when the Bermagans boarded the ship. Do you remember that?"

"Bermagans?" The memories began drifting back into place. "Oh yeah. Nasty arrogant little S.O.B.s with faces like the back end of a Tennessee hog and big fake smiles."

"Sssh. They'll hear you."

Trip looked up for the first time and wished he hadn't. Not only because the movement made little cartoon birdies start dancing around his head, but because his surroundings were deeply depressing in themselves. The cell he and Malcolm were in reminded him of the cave where he'd once tried to kill T'Pol, but less homelike. In fact the most homelike things about it were the metal bars that separated them from the Bermagan guards and the various types of lichen growing on the walls, in cheery shades of grey.

"Nice hotel. How's the room service?"

Malcolm gave the ghost of a smile. "Nonexistant so far, I'm afraid."

At this point there was a small commotion outside and two more Bermagans arrived. These were even uglier than the two standing guard outside the cell, which was really quite an achievement. One of them peered through the bars at Trip and Malcolm and then turned to the guards.

"They're conscious. Take them to Lab 12." Then he turned and left, in the manner of one who knows with absolute certainty that he will be obeyed.

* * *

They arrived at Lab 12 to find Hoshi and T'Pol already there. The place was just as welcoming as their cell had been, but without the softening effect of the lichen. Before they could do more than establish that none of them were seriously hurt, the chief Bermagan arrived. Regarding them disdainfully, he announced:

"You are now slaves of the Bermagan Supremacy. You will enhance and improve our technology in every way possible. You will work hard or the rest of your crew will suffer for your failure."

Trip was trying hard to contain his fury but not succeeding terribly well. "What have you done with our people you son-of-a..." Malcolm's hand clamped firmly across his mouth, preventing any further imprudence.

The chief Bermagan appeared unfazed. "Your captain and crew are now working in our teknor barbel mines, producing the essential element that allows our machines to function. If you work hard they will be fairly treated. Fail to produce results and, as I said, they will suffer." Turning to the guards, he continued, "Watch them carefully. I shall return in five hours to see what progress has been made."

"Yes, O Reeyeck." The guard gave a snappy salute as his superior departed, and then he and his fellow prodded the Enterprise crewpeople towards a set of benches littered with improbable looking devices.

"Work. And don't get any ideas about using any of that against us, or your friends in the mines will be sorry."

"Nice chaps." Malcolm muttered sourly as they began to examine the Bermagan technology.

* * *

"None of this stuff should work!" Trip declared decisively, slamming down the bizarrely shaped device he'd been peering at. "And even if it did work, it shouldn't do whatever it is it's doing. It doesn't make any _sense_!"

The guards looked up at his outburst but it seemed they were used to this reaction from new captives, as they just gave nasty grins and went back to some sort of complicated game they were playing involving dice with an unfeasible number of sides.

"Quite." T'Pol agreed quietly. "It functions only because it is powered with teknor barbel. According to the Vulcan database, this element is the sole reason that the Bermagans were able to achieve interstellar travel. My understanding is that they simply build a device for a particular function, connect it to a teknor barbel power cell and it performs that function. However, the Bermagans themselves have rather limited imaginations, hence their enslavement of others to build them better devices."

"We have to get out of here, rescue the others from the mines and retake the ship," Malcolm whispered urgently.

"Agreed, Lieutenant. I have a plan to do so. However, before we can put it into action, we must overcome the guards."

"How're we gonna do that?" Soon to be another entry on the List of Questions Trip Tucker Wished He'd Never Asked.

T'Pol cleared her throat. "The Bermagans, among their many failings, are extremely homophobic. If you and Lieutenant Reed were to engage in affectionate behaviour, perhaps of an osculatory nature, they would doubtless become extremely distressed, and Ensign Sato and I should be able to render them harmless relatively easily."

"You want us to kiss?" Malcolm sounded as though he was trying hard to maintain a level tone but not quite getting there. "Er, couldn't you and Hoshi..."

"Unfortunately that would be likely to excite them unduly. It is only affection between males that they find unacceptable."

"Are they completely insane?"

T'Pol's raised eyebrow was capable of conveying a great many meanings. This one said "Well, _duh_!"

Trip took a deep breath. Kissing Malcolm wasn't something he'd ever contemplated before, but heck, it'd only be like giving CPR, right? With tongues. Well, OK, maybe not _exactly_ like CPR, but he'd certainly done worse things in the name of duty. And he'd be willing to bet Malcolm would taste better than the "essence of male" they'd fed him on that desert planet. Besides, it wasn't as if Malcolm wasn't attractive...and whoa, where did _that_ thought come from?

Panic suddenly hit him. He'd never kissed another man before—what if the plan failed because he wasn't convincing enough? He had a momentary vision of Hoshi, T'Pol and the guards holding up scorecards for technique and artistic interpretation, and wondered if the blow to his head had been harder than he'd realised. Then he had an even worse idea—suppose Malcolm thought he was lousy at kissing? And wait, that mattered because?

T'Pol had to hiss his name three times to get sufficient of his attention for the further few minutes of whispered planning it took to work out how to get into position without the guards suspecting what they were up to. After that it was just a question of awaiting a suitable opportunity.

* * *

Half an hour or so later, Trip, wrapped in Malcolm's arms and kissing him enthusiastically, decided that this was T'Pol's best plan ever, particularly since Malcolm's enthusiasm seemed to equal his. It had been a little awkward to start with, true, the usual working out how not to bump noses, combined with a bit of extra oddness at kissing someone so different from the girls Trip was used to. But once they'd got past that and started kissing in earnest, the whole thing seemed so natural that he'd decided that he should have done this a long time ago. Judging from the way Malcolm's hands had begun to wander he didn't think he'd get any argument there.

After what seemed like far too short a time, there was a tap on his shoulder.

"Commander. Lieutenant. You may stop now. The Bermagans are incapacitated."

Whuh? Bermagans? What Bermagans? Oh. Those Bermagans. The ones lying unconscious on the floor. OK.

Trip didn't think he'd actually said any of that out loud, but judging by Hoshi's grin, it'd been written all over his face anyway. He sighed and let go of Malcolm as slowly as he reasonably could, assisted by the fact that Malcolm seemed equally reluctant to let go of him.

"Good job, T'Pol. You use that Vulcan karate stuff on 'em?" Trip was babbling and he knew it.

"That proved unnecessary. They appear to have fainted of their own accord."

"I can't exactly blame them either." Hoshi chimed in. "You guys were _very_ convincing."

"Indeed," T'Pol said. Was he imagining things or were her eyes just a little brighter than usual? Nah, couldn't be. "Now we must get to work, before their leader returns."

* * *

Trip regarded the device that the four of them, under T'Pol's direction, had hastily put together. It looked, he thought, rather like a porcupine that had attempted to mate with one of the Klein bottles from his theoretical physics class back in college. The precise shape of it seemed to shift and blur each time he looked at it, as if his eyes were somehow sliding off it. In fact, he was almost certain that some of those doodads around the edges hadn't been there when they'd finished it.

He hoped they'd done it right, whatever it was. It'd been hard to concentrate during the building of it, what with Malcolm working right beside him. He'd been doing his best to follow T'Pol's instructions—he knew it was vital to get this doohickey perfect so that they could rescue the Captain and their crewmates—but it was awfully difficult not to get lost in remembering how soft Malcolm's lips had felt against his, how good it had felt to kiss him and how Malcolm had hung on to him like he planned on never letting go. He shook his head as though to clear it.

"OK, now that we've built this thing, what're we gonna do with it?"

Vulcans, Trip reminded himself, do not express their emotions. So it was obviously pure coincidence that T'Pol's current expression closely resembled a triumphant smirk. Or perhaps it was just the peculiar lighting.

"We shall endeavour to make the Bermagans see our point of view." she said. __*

The difficulty in achieving this proved to lie in actually finding any Bermagans in the first place. After what seemed like hours of searching through a maze of twisting corridors, all depressingly alike, they still hadn't seen a single other person, Bermagan or otherwise.

They finally opened yet another featureless grey door and found themselves in the biggest cavern yet. The roof was so high that it was lost in shadow above them, but there was enough light to show the gargantuan carvings that covered most of the far wall.

"What the heck is that supposed to be?" Trip asked.

"The Great Bird of the Galaxy," T'Pol replied, evenly, "protecting the sentient races with his wings. It is a prevalent myth on many worlds."

"He doesn't seem to have done a very good job," Malcolm observed. Trip saw that he was right, in that many of the carved figures had been brutally hacked at and were missing some of their usual distinguishing features. The Vulcan figure particularly was only recognisable at all because of the ears.

"It appears that the Bermagans have rejected the faith of their ancestors," T'Pol said.

"Indeed we have," came the oily voice of Reeyeck as he emerged from a doorway opposite them. A squad of guards appeared from various points around the cavern.

"Fools!" Reeyeck's companion stood beside his leader with a look of such total smugness on his face that Trip felt an almost irresistible urge to punch his lights out. "Did you truly think you could escape us?"

"Oh be quiet Braynown!" Reeyeck admonished. "It's _my_ turn to do the gloating this week, or had you forgotten?"

"Enough!" T'Pol interrupted, raising the device so that the Bermagans could see it. "Release our captain, our crew and our ship, or I will render all the teknor barbel on this planet inactive."

"You're bluffing." Braynown scoffed. "There's no way you could do that."

T'Pol's finger tightened on the activation switch. "Would you care to test that hypothesis?"

Uncertainty clouded the aliens' faces.

"Shoot her!" Reeyeck ordered.

T'Pol must have activated the device a fraction of a second after the guards began to fire. The beams from their energy weapons went haywire for a brief moment, hitting almost everything in the cavern except the people they were aiming at, before they fizzled out like dying fireworks and became so many useless, inert lumps.

Reeyeck was furious. "KILL THEM!" he yelled and stamped his foot for emphasis. This proved to be a mistake. The vibration was the last straw for the Great Bird, which had taken a number of hits in the abortive firefight. There was an almighty tearing sound and the massive head of the ancient statue tore away from the cavern wall and fell directly down on to the Bermagan leaders.

When the dust cleared, there was a massive hole in the cavern floor and no sign of any Bermagans.

Trip opened his mouth to speak. Malcolm tapped him on the shoulder. "If you're about to make any sort of pun involving the words "getting ahead" or "getting the bird", I will kill you with my bare hands. Sir."

Trip wasn't even sure what "getting the bird" meant, but his mouth snapped shut. Just in case.

* * *

Finding and releasing the rest of the crew was easy by comparison. The Bermagans were completely demoralised by the sudden collapse of their technology and those who hadn't been overcome by their former slaves were mostly hiding in corners and whimpering. Somehow Trip found it hard to muster any sympathy for them. Especially when he discovered the "modifications" they'd started to make to Enterprise while he was gone. He had to concede the jacuzzi was a good idea, but on the whole he thought the bridge really wasn't the best place for it.

* * *

Some hours later, in a mineshaft, below the cavern of the Great Bird, two piles of dust began to shift and rise and eventually resolved themselves into the rather grubby figures of the former Bermagan leaders.

Braynown gazed disconsolately at the sheer sides of the mineshaft.

"What do we do now, Reeyeck?" he asked, uncertainly.

Reeyeck handed him a shovel.

"What we Bermagans always do when we're stuck in a hole," he declared. "Keep digging!"

* * *

Meanwhile, back on Enterprise at last, having reassured himself that his beloved engine had come to no lasting harm, Trip was preparing to talk to Malcolm. He was standing in front of a mirror holding up two shirts and wondering whether green pineapples or blue palm trees were more appropriate for paying a visit to a man you'd kissed half senseless but hadn't actually confessed your feelings for yet, when the doorchime sounded. Trust Malcolm to get in a pre-emptive strike. Hastily flinging on the pineapple shirt (Malcolm liked those, he reasoned, perhaps they'd bring him luck) he answered the door to find...not Malcolm, but Daniels, holding out a small object.

"What the..."

"Take this Commander. It's the power cell from the device with which you stopped the Bermagans. It contains the only working piece of teknor barbel remaining in the universe."

"But why..."

"Am I giving it to you? Because you'll need it. Not now. Not soon. But eventually you'll need it. Keep it with you. And...take care." And with a look that Trip could only describe as wistful, Daniels disappeared.

Trip shrugged and put the device down carefully on his desk. He'd worry about what to do with it later. Right now he had more important things to think about. Like persuading Malcolm into a re-run of that kiss. And maybe a sequel or two while he was at it.


End file.
